Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 25, 1952

101 N.L.R.B. 577 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

ELECTRO-METALLURGICAL COMPANY 577
ELECTRO-METALLURGICAL COMPANY, A DIVISION OF UNION CARBIDE
AND CARBON CORPORATION ' and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED
AUTOMOBILE WORKERS OF AMERICA , AFL, PETITIONER. Case No.
8-RC-1672. November 25,1952
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Philip Fusco, hearing officer.
The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prej-
udicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
,(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks to sever a unit of power division employees
from an existing plant-wide unit at the Employer's Ashtabula, Ohio,
plant, represented since the plant began operation in 1943 by the In-
tervenor, United Steelworkers of America, CIO, and its Local 3081.
The Employer and the Intervenor oppose severance upon the grounds,
among others, that the Employer's operations are so highly integrated
and interdependent, so closely resemble the operations of a basic alu-
minum plant, and are so identified with the basic steel industry as to
compel application of the rule of the Permanente and National Tube
cases 2 to this case. Moreover, they contend that the history of collec-
tive bargaining at the Employer's various plants has followed the
pattern of industrial bargaining established in the basic steel industry
generally.
The Employer produces ferro-alloys and calcium carbide at a num-
ber of plants in the United States and Canada, including the plant
at Ashtabula, Ohio, which is involved in this proceeding. The cal-
cium carbide and ferro-alloys are produced in electric furnaces which
require large amounts of electric power supplied by the powerhouse.
The Employer's name appears in the caption as amended at the hearing.
2 The Permanente Metals Corporation, 89 NLRB 804; National Tube Company , 76 NLRB
1191.
101 NLRB No. 120.
578 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Organizationally, the powerhouse constitutes one of the major divi-
sions of the plant. It has three sections : Operating, coal handling,
and maintenance. The operating section includes firemen who oper-
ate boilers by automatic devices, assistant firemen who watch over
pumps and fans and check boilers and related equipment, condenser
pit equipment attendants who operate the condensate pumps, water
pumps and a hydrogen cooling system, ash removal attendants who
remove ashes from the furnace bottom, turbine oilers who regulate
pressures on turbines and take various gauge readings, and a relief
man. The coal handling section consists of a coal handler and two
helpers who operate coal crushers and conveyors. The maintenance
section includes mechanics and their helpers, a plant oiler, a mechanic-
welder, and electricians and their helpers. There are also a number
of laborers not definitely assigned to particular sections, who do neces-
sary labor work.
Power division employees work in and about the powerhouse under
their own supervisors. They do not interchange with other plant
employees, except that, in case of emergency or in the event of a major
overhaul, mechanics and electricians from the main plant may be
assigned to work in the powerhouse and vice versa. Several of the
mechanics in the powerhouse are also responsible for the charging
and maintenance of steam stations in the plant area which are used
for charging fireless locomotives. However, this work is under pow-
erhouse supervision.
The powerhouse employees punch a separate time clock and utilize
separate locker facilities. Generally, working conditions and em-
ployee benefits are the same for all employees throughout the plant.
However, powerhouse employees do have some advantage in seniority
over other employees in that, although seniority is plant-wide, the
only powerhouse employees who can be "bumped" are those in the
lowest labor grade.
The Employer's production process is almost identical with that
employed in the basic aluminum industry.3 This process involves
placing materials such as quartzite, limestone, coal, coke, scrap steel,
and various metallic ores in an electric furnace where they are sub-
jected to intense heat generated by electric arcs supplied with elec-
tricity produced in the powerhouse.' The ferro-alloys produced,
ferro-silicon, ferro-manganese, and silico-manganese, are sold to steel
companies for use in the manufacture of alloy and specialty steels.
8 See The Permanente Metals Corporation, supra.
+ There are meters at each furnace and the control board at the powerhouse. Each head
furnace man controls the power input to his furnace. A control operator at the power-
house watches the meters on his board to make sure that the power transmitted to each
furnace does not exceed a given maximum and that the load remains balanced. If the
control operator observes any irregularity , he informs the head furnace man at the furnace
involved.
ELECTRO-METALLURGICAL COMPANY 579
Thus, the Employer performs an essential preliminary step in the
basic steel industry.
Moreover, in a prior case 5 involving this Ashtabula plant, decided
almost 10 years ago, the Board refused to find appropriate a separate
unit of railroad engineers, firemen, and hostlers upon the grounds
that they were part of a department more intimately related to the
production of ferro-alloys than to railroad transportation, the plant
operated as a "highly integrated enterprise," 6 and the bargaining
history at the Employer's 13 other plants and throughout the steel
industry generally was on an industrial basis. The record shows
that there has been no appreciable change in the Employer's method
of operation since the earlier Board decision finding a plant-wide
unit appropriate, except that a power plant was added in 1949 to
furnish power formerly purchased from a public utility. Power
plant employees have been included in the plant-wide unit since the
erection of the powerhouse.
Because of the close integration and interdependence of the pro-
duction processes at the Ashtabula plant, because the production of
ferro-alloys constitutes a part of the basic steel processes, and because
the history of collective bargaining at the Employer's plants produc-
ing ferro-alloys and in the basic steel industry generally has been
predominantly on the basic of industrial units, we believe that the
Board should not disturb the established plant-wide unit at the Em-
ployer's Ashtabula plant by permitting severance of the powerhouse
employees 7 Accordingly, we find that the unit sought is inappropri-
ate. We shall therefore dismiss the petition.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.
CHAIRMAN HERZOG and MEMBER PETERSON, dissenting :
We do not agree with the majority that the Employer in its opera-
tions at the Ashtabula plant is part of the basic steel industry. There-
fore we find inapplicable the doctrine of the National Tube case that
only plant-wide units are appropriate in the basic steel industry.
Electra Metallurgical Company, 54 NLRB 15.
° "The plant is a highly integrated enterprise , no one department of which could operate
without the close and constant assistance of all others ... The plant is managed
through the office of a single general superintendent. There is a single 'supervisor of
service' who oversees employment and general relations of all employees. Wage rates and
conditions of employment are centrally determined."
7 In Electro Metallurgical Company, 97 NLRB 230, the Board found a powerhouse unit
appropriate at the Employer 's Marietta plant. However, at the time the Board rendered
its decision the production facilities of that plant were not yet in operation and the power
plant was furnishing electricity to a nearby plant of the Employer . Moreover, the appli-
cability of the National Tube doctrine was not in issue in that case.
242305-53--35
.580 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Employer does not produce steel at the Ashtabula plant. Its
output there is almost equally divided between calcium carbide and
ferro-alloys such as ferro-silicon, ferro-manganese, and silico-manga-
11ese. Calcium carbide is a metallic solid from which is produced acety-
lene, which in turn is used in oxyacetylene welding and in the
production of organic chemicals. Calcium carbide is not used in the
production of steel. The ferro-alloys are sold to the producers of basic
steel who use them as ingredients in the manufacture of alloy steels.
We have been referred to no authority which classifies a plant such
as that of the Employer at Ashtabula as part of the basic steel in-
dustry." Indeed, not even the Employer makes such contention. It
asserts no more than that it is "closely allied with the steel industry."
The Board itself, in a series of cases, has defined the kinds of steel
manufacturing plants which it regards as coming within the "basic
steel" classification. They are plants which produce "ingot steel,
rolled steel, or sheet metal products." 9 The Employer produces none
of these items.
About a year ago, the Board found appropriate a unit of powerhouse
employees at the Employer's Marietta plant, which is similar to the
Ashtabula plant.1° We do not agree with the majority that the power-
house unit was found appropriate in that case on an interim basis,
because production facilities had not yet been put into operation. In
justifying its finding, the Board said: "The Board has repeatedly
found employees such as those sought herein to be distinct functional
groups which may constitute separate appropriate units." As author-
ity for this proposition, the Board cited American Smelting and Re-
fining Company, 86 NLRB 1172, in which the Board permitted sever-
ance of a powerhouse unit from an existing plant-wide unit in a metal
refining plant. Moreover, the Board has found appropriate units less
than plant-wide in scope at still other plants of the Employer.- In
these circumstances, as the Employer is not part of the basic steel
industry, we would adhere to the precedent of the recent case involving
the Marietta plant, and permit the powerhouse employees to decide
for themselves whether they desire to be represented as a separate unit
,or as part of the existing plant-wide unit.
8 Although in its 1944 decision involving the Ashtabula plant, issued before the amend-
ments to the Act (Electro Metallurgical Company, 54 NLRB 15), the Board did refer to
the "steel industry generally" as authority for finding a plant-wide unit appropriate, this
term is much broader than the term "basic steel industry."
Rheem Manufacturing Company, 100 NLRB 564; General Steel Castings Corpora-
tion, 99 NLRB 607; Mesta Machine Company, 94 NLRB 1624 ; Scullin Steel Co ., 95 NLRB
530 ; Baldwin Locomotive Works, 78 NLRB 803.
'° Electro Metallurgical Company, 97 NLRB 230.
n Electro Metallurgical Company (Sheffield, Alabama), 69 NLRB 772 (traffic and mainte-
nance department employees ) ; Electro Metallurgical Company (Niagara Works ), 57 NLRB
1764 ( conductors , switchmen , and brakemen ; railroad engineers , firemen , and hostlers),
reversing 57 NLRB 518.